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I suck at the game, yet everything I'm told to do doesn't add up.

Ent3rpris3··2 votes·667 views

Okay...I've been playing this game for 6 years now...you would think I'd be pretty good. Couldn't be more wrong. I used to not keep up with patch notes, and never knew who was good and who wasn't. This last year I've been paying a lot more attention, and reading the patch notes. My friends are all better than me at this game, so I often defer to their judgments about the status quo. Patch notes say "[champ A] gets damage increase and ult CD is reduced by 10 seconds" = Friends and most of community I encounter say Champ A got nerfed. Patch notes say "Champs A, C, and D got damage nerfs, Champ B got base MR buff." = Champs A, C and D get picked more often than before and champ B gets picked less often than before. That makes no sense, yet somehow it happens every time without fail.

I can't farm. I've been trying to play AD and Mid more, because I can't win solo Q as support. I know what last hitting is, but there's so much complexity micro-managing each wave, and as soon as one minion dies, all chance of patterns are lost. "The first minion to die in the first wave takes 10% health every second from my minions; I need it to be at 20% before my autos can kill it, so it goes 50%, 40%, 30%, and then all of a sudden it just decides to take so much more damage and just dies." No pattern to it, and nothing I can do. It makes no sense and is impossible to manage.

My late game is alright, but I get completely destroyed in laning phase. I somehow can copy someone's build, runes, and masteries VERBATIM and do HALF the damage they do, and I don't understand how. I get destroyed by lane bullies and passive players equally. Every time I lose a game early on it's because the enemy lane has more movement speed than myself and I can't get away (And playing ezreal doesn't change this), yet everyone I talk to (Who are all better than me, some immensely so) all tell me that getting a lot of movement speed early on is a horrible idea, yet it wins without fail. Other times I'll be taking damage from an Ashe with regular runes and a zeal(Nothing else), and she still out-damages the Varus with a BF sword and a 'W' passive. It doesn't make sense. I always feel like I do less damage and they do more damage despite me having better stats. I was told by all of my friends for YEARS ago that you have to last hit minions so the enemy pushes and then get jungle ganks. Surprise surprise, no f*cking jungler to speak of, and I get harassed too much under tower to stop them. I have half their farm 12 minutes in and can't do anything about it. Aggressive lanes are just the thing right now, yet the other team ALWAYS has a more competent jungler, but if I don't stay and push to their tower, somehow I lose so much farm and immediately get behind. My mechanics are solid, but I somehow always get beat by everyone around me, despite everything on the stat/item level being in my favor.

I'll try to freeze the waves in the middle of the lane, but still get destroyed early on because they just do more damage, and then the lane is pushed anyways (ie Viktor getting harassed by a Brand). I'll find myself in matchups where my champs inherently have higher stats and in demo videos they win by default (ie I have a very good early game champ and they have a very bad early game champ), yet when I try to be the bully, they can somehow win the 1v1 despite less farm and taking more poke damage. For some reason my damage to them doesn't add up, and I'm constantly lost as to how anyone can win with the champs I play, because even if I'm in a game that is a straight comp-copy of a pro game, and I follow the build of the pro, somehow I lose to the ashe with nothing more than a zeal.

The next nuisance are builds. As stated earlier, I defer to my friends judgments because they are more in tune with community understanding of nerfs/buffs, and they are just better at the game than me. I'll be playing an AD champ against a team of Morgana, Leblanc, Braum, Rumble, and...let's say Corki. That's A LOT of AP to be afraid of, yet apparently neither Maw of Malmortius or Mercurial Scepter, the only two items in game to offer both AD and Magic Resist, are horrible ideas, even considering the extra effects they have. I'll be playing Zac against a team with a lot of AP, and be told to build Randuin's Omen before Spirit Visage. I'll be supporting against a mostly AD team, and told I need to get Locket of the Iron Solari over Frozen Heart. I'll be playing Maokai and be told I should take Rylai's Crystal Scepter when basically all of Maokai's abiliities have CC, on top of building Iceborn Gauntlet half the time, making Rylai's a complete waste of a passive on Maokai (And don't say stats, because I already have a RoA), yet apparently Rylai's is the best thing ever to build on him. It doesn't make sense to me, yet everyone in the community agrees with them, and I don't know whether to trust logic or the tried-and-tested decisions.

For whatever reason, everything I know about in the game just doesn't add up. When I play a champ with higher AD and Armor, even if it's literally just back and forth auto attacks, I almost always lose, yet when they copy my champ/runes/masteries/item build and I copy theirs, I'm still on the losing end.

I'm the guy that could somehow lose a Garen lane against a support Nami, yet my mechanics are pretty good.

I've got to be missing something. Perhaps something that was always implied, but I never heard it so it never occurred to me. Some hidden stat that I never knew about, etc...

9 Comments

My Sea Cow2 votes

If farming is an issue, do a custom game just focusing on last hitting. That's helped me tremendously.

Grashnim1 votes

Sometimes you're just not talented at something and need to accept it. For example, I'm a bad drawer.

trash sion1 votes

Do you use masteries? Having none could be a problem. Lol.

Ent3rpris31 votes

What did I say that would suggest I don't? I'm very particular about them, and sometimes don't understand the reasoning behind some choices..

trash sion1 votes

You just didnt mention them, thought that could be the "secret stat" you referred to.

redniwediS1 votes

The biggest thing you can do is just try to have fun. It's a video game, fun is literally it's purpose. League specifically is supposed to be fun for competitive people, but fun is the end goal of the game.

Find something you like and just roll with it. It doesn't matter if you win or lose, just so long as you try your best and enjoy yourself while doing so. Just having fun with something like that will give you a whole lot more knowledge than trying hard to win. That knowledge, along with the fact that you're legitimately enjoying yourself, will give you the confidence you need to put what skill you have to work.

If you go into game with the idea that it's fun to win, but not fun to lose you're just not going to enjoy yourself very much. Every game has a loser and a victor, so make sure your idea of fun isn't tied to that.

I've got a few friends who just do whatever they feel like every game. Stuff like AP Anivia as our bot lane carry with Garen support, Alistar mid, and other equally silly things. We try our hardest to win, and that challenge gives us a lot of enjoyment, but in the end it's fun because we're doing what we want to do.

Playing solo you can't do as much of that as you can with a group, but when it comes to builds it helps to figure out your own ideas on items. If you're an intuitive person just wing it and buy whatever feels right at the time. If you're not try and set up some rules for when you want health, armor, damage, sustain and whatever, and adjust them as you learn.

TLDR: Do what you want, not what others want you to do. You'll figure out how to make it work for your own playstyle once you stop trying to catch up to the opinions of others, and instead follow your own.

Ent3rpris31 votes

The reason I want to do better competitively is to play with friends. The friends I like to play with, and the friends I win with, only play ranked, and they play more than me, so I can't have them carry me that far. If I'm playing with them, I'm usually support, and the best support of our group, where I can stay on par with gold 1s and plat 5s. but I'm bronze and now they're all gold, so the only way I can play with them is to rank up by myself, and I can't do that as support. Meanwhile, I'll play against a support Morgana who builds ONLY AP (Rune page was literally 36 AP), and got destroyed, but told that's a horrible thing to do. It works, so what's so bad about it?

redniwediS1 votes

When I go mid lane I bring my AP rune page. It is nothing but scaling AP runes, giving 83 AP at max level. I doubt you'll find another person on these boards who will tell you that's a good idea.

But I use it, and I do very well with it. I've done my own testing and I've figured out what works well for me. That is what I recommend you do. It doesn't matter if it was just nerfed, or if a different option was just buffed, or even if someone thinks it's bad. If it works it works, and depending on your unique playstyle something may work that doesn't for others.

Don't just listen to the opinions of others, make up your own mind by experimenting. See what works for you and what doesn't, and work on improving the former.

People often take the opinions of higher ranked players as the word of law instead of looking at what is best for them, at their level of play. Once you learn what is best for you and start forming your own ideas I think you'll do just fine.

DevilishMetal1 votes

Would you mind some more specific examples you come across often? You seem distressed and I genuinely want to help you out, but I can't when you provided nothing but pronouns.

Quick edit: It's worth noting that Maw is definitely a good item against magic damage as an AD, mercurial is more for CC than Magic Resist. I don't know what your friends are doing, badmouthing Maw.

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